Recently, when H and I were having breakfast at nearby diner, a woman entered with a table full of young adults visiting from Japan (students in some sort of exchange program). We quietly asked our waitress to add their bill to ours and let H pay it all without mentioning it to them.
The waitress gave us a radiant smile and applied H’s 10% senior discount to both checks. B-)
I’ve been blessed to have received many kindnesses. The one that sticks out in my mind the most, though, is perhaps the smallest one. One day I was pumping gas and worrying over a problem and must have been scowling. The guy on the other side of the pump looked up, gave me a radiant smile, and said “hey, smile, life’s not that bad”. Just the way he said it with his huge smile made me realize he was right, and it changed my attitude for the better for the rest of the day. It always stuck with me that just a smile and a kind word really changed my day around, so since that day I try to pay that forward. So easy, but so rewarding when you can see someone smile.
Thanks for this thread. It’s so nice to hear something good!
Many years ago, on my first solo trip to Europe, I flew to Munich and took the train to Mittenwald, a village in the Alps. I was somewhat misinformed, thinking that since English is taught in schools there, most people would speak English. I’m, no. Not in Bavaria, anyway. And I only knew a few words of German.
I had booked my first night in advance at a lovely inn, intending to catch a train and travel to a different town each day or two. I woke up the next morning with a high fever and sore throat and cough. The inn’s manager arranged for a doctor to come over, and then she went to the pharmacy to get the prescribed medication. The inn was fully booked for the next several days, and I had nowhere else to go. The manager arranged for the inn’s chef to take me to his elderly grandmother’s house… a mountain chalet that looked like a postcard. His grandma spoke no English, but somehow we managed to communicate. She looked after me for a few days, making sure I had soup and tea and that I took my medicine… as if she was my own grandmother. What a blessing those kind people were. I was really quite sick and don’t know what I would have done if those angels hadn’t appeared.
I remember a very kind stranger we met at the train station in Germany. We didn’t speak a word of German and she shepparded us to the right place and made the train wait for us to board, making sure we got on the right train. I have no idea how we would have managed without her—we had no idea what we were doing.
Paying it forward, one day when I was getting ready to head home, I saw a couple trying to figure out how to catch a taxi or some conveyance to get back to their hotel (they had just gotten their marriage license for their future wedding). I happily drove them to their hotel, which is for veterans and active duty service persons and thanked them for their service.
My husband and I had left Bloomington, Indiana after two days of interviews then getting accepted to graduate school. We had little money and were driving back to New England. Stopped in the boondocks of Pennsylvania at an inexpensive motel. We were on cloud nine excited. A man behind us was also checking in. He noticed our Maine plates and struck up a conversation. Turns out he was from Maine. And his best friend growing up was my high school algebra teacher and my neighbor. (I always say if you are from Maine and meat another Mainer and you talk long enough you will discover that you both know someone). Anyway, he was a mucky muck for USA Today and had just received some big promotion. Why he was staying at that cheapy motel we’ll never know. He invited us out for the most amazing dinner at a local high end steakhouse, and paid for all the food and wine. It was such a memorable night for two young people who would never get the same from our parents. It was such a great celebration. He didn’t rescue us from anything, but we will never forget that night.
A couple of years ago I was getting physical therapy treatments, following cancer surgery and was also in the midst of chemo. One day, due to a calendar error, I arrived at PT an hour early. Exhausted with an hour til my appointment, and tears in my eyes, I slumped into a waiting room chair. The young man behind the desk “got it.” He disappeared for a couple of minutes then came back to get me. He had set up a private room with a pillow and a warm blanket so I could nap comfortably until my appointment time. That was an incredible gift.
About 15 years ago, I pulled into a small town center parking lot in mid-December. It was poorly maintained and holiday shoppers were parked outside the usual spaces, which were full. A large SUV passed me in and pulling over to make room, my car bumped a parked car, causing a small ding in its bumper. After the owner returned. I told him what had happened and that I would pay for the repair. The young man, likely in his early twenties, checked his bumper and said, “No problem. Look at this car, it’s old and that scratch is nothing I’d bother fixing.” I tell him I’d like to pay for it. “No.” Can I treat you to dinner? “No. Use the money to buy presents for your kids.” The kindness he showed was touching; I could have absorbed the repair cost, but was emotionally raw with two very sick immediate family members. His response lifted my spirits and set a great example.
Last October I found out about 3:30 on a Friday afternoon that my mom was in critical condition and I needed to get to Florida from the DC-Baltimore area. I continued my drive home and packed VERY quickly (totally random stuff, by the way). My husband grabbed a ticket for me on a 5:30ish flight. He got my to the airport through Friday afternoon 95 traffic. I had to get through security (TSA-pre would have required a long walk). There was a woman behind me in line, and she was just so NICE to me. She helped me get my stuff out of my bag, and back into my bag. Then she came over to where I was siting to get my shoes on, and asked me if I was OK, and made sure I had all my stuff. She just showed so much compassion. It’s the “little things” that sometimes matter the most.
The door had just been closed on the plane and the jetway pulled back when my toddler cried “Puppy!” She had left the stuffed dog she slept with every night, carried everywhere and would be inconsolable without, at the gate. I was able to ask a flight attendant if there was any way to radio the terminal to pick up and hold Puppy so that we could arrange to get her back somehow and she said she’d try. I was consoling my quietly weeping child when who came down the aisle in the arms of an airline employee? Puppy! The flight’s captain had radioed to the terminal, had the jetway reattached, and had Puppy brought on board.
I’ve always thought that pilot must have been a father.
This is my new favorite thread. Thank you to the OP and to all contributors.
Love this thread! I was encouraged by a stranger just after I lost my dad. I was driving long distance, coming back home a few days after the funeral. My dad’s sudden death was a shock to our family, and I had spent my energy helping mom with immediate steps for a new widow while managing an infant and a preschooler.
I managed to drive most of the way, but had to stop at a fast food place about an hour from home. The kids were a bit cranky, and I had lost all physical, mental, and emotional energy. I was just sitting there wondering how to suck it up when my well was dry.
And along came a grandfatherly stranger. He engaged in conversation, was positive and kind, smiling at my kids and spreading his happy personality.
I felt like my dad had found a way to encourage me from beyond. I shed a few tears, thanked the man, and found a reserve of energy to finish my drive home.
Angels. They seem to show up in all shapes and sizes, just when you need them most.
It was a few months after I had adopted my daughter, 23 months, from China. She was an amazing toddler and I was totally in love with her, but I just wasn’t used to all the attention she needed. Especially difficult was nap time. It was a Saturday afternoon and I really needed that hour or so that she slept in the afternoon but she just would not fall asleep.
I took her for a walk in the stroller but there she was, wide awake when we got home. We lived in a mostly African-American neighborhood in Brooklyn and across the street was a household with an 85-year-old man, his 75-year-old wife, his 82-year-old sister, and his grown son. I knew the older man best, since he was the head of the block association and a very social guy. His sister, who had never been a parent and had lost her husband many many years before, walked across the street and just made small talk with me for 10 minutes. She gave me the strength to take my girl into the house and survive a napless afternoon.
Mid 1980s, rural Missouri, Sunday afternoon, old car. I stopped for gas at a gas station, no services. And steam (water vapor actually) came pouring out of my hood from a split upper cooling system hose. A motorcyclist that had also stopped for gas removed the hose and clamps after the heat dissipated a little. drove 10 miles to the next town that had services, bought a new piece of hose, returned and fixed my car. Wouldn’t take money, never even knew his name.
All of these touch my heart. If I don’t hit the Like button on any, please know that I do Like them all. And at a time when the lift from these great tales is needed. Your memories are a nice thing from a stranger.
Oh yeah, there was the time we arrived in Venice on Easter Sunday. The owner said he didn’t hold our hotel room because we didn’t prepay (tho we had faxed our reservation—in the days prior to internet). He said no problem because his friend had a place next door and they’d keep us for a night at the same price and his staff would come the next morning and get our suitcases and we could stay at his place for the rest of the time. These were lovely and inexpensive places right on St Mark’s Square. We had a great time!
When our daughter was in 4th grade, we took her to Washington, D.C. during April break. We had to pick and choose what to see in our few days there, so had to decide between standing in line for a few hours in the early morning for tickets to see the Bureau of Engraving & Printing or doing the same for the nearby Washington Monument. We chose to see money being made-- but the tickets ran out a few people ahead of us!
Disappointed, and realizing it was also too late to get tickets for the elevators of the Washington Monument, we walked over to it anyway to look it over from ground level. A man approached us and offered us his tickets! He said he was a tour guide and had been up many times, so he routinely gave his own tickets away. It happened to be April 20, 2006, the day the Chinese president was visiting, and from atop the Monument she saw the demonstrators on the lawn of the White House. All in all, the visit to the Washington Monument made a big impression on her.
When our daughter got back to school after break, a contest was held by the later-defunct Mortgage Lenders Network. It was called “Dream Big”. The kids were asked to draw their dream house. Our daughter drew a very tall slender house that looked pretty much like the Washington Monument, with a huge slide spiraling down around the outside. She won a $500 U.S. Savings Bond for her entry!
But it doesn’t end there. The following day we tried again at the Bureau of Engraving & Printing, getting in line even earlier. While in line we chatted with the couple ahead of us, who urged us to visit the Udvar-Hazy Center (Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum) at Dulles International Airport, which we had not planned to do. On their strong recommendation, we decided to go there on our last day, on our way home. This enormous center houses the Enola Gay, a Concorde, and the space shuttle Discovery, among others. That visit turned out to be one of the highlights our trip to D.C. and we have always been grateful for the recommendation.
And we did get to see the Bureau of Engraving & Printing, so really it could not have worked out better.
Our car overheated on a road in basically the middle of nowhere on our way to see family. The tow truck driver picked us up and hauled us into town saying he had to hurry. It was Good Friday and the whole town was going to the church play for the annual Easter pageant.
Everything was closed (and I mean everything).
We didn’t know what we were going to do. We truly were stuck.
Well he figured out it was our thermostat, called some friends to find the right one and fixed our car for us. All while we sat on the couch in the office with his wife and kids (all waiting for him).
His family was late for sure to the play–but he shrugged it off --“They can’t start without me. I’m playing Jesus.”
I was completely out of money after spending a year backpacking on the cheap in Latin America. I stuck my thumb out to hitch a ride to the Bogota airport for my flight back to the States, and a taxi stopped. I explained that I didn’t have any money at all and he told me to hop in! It was a long ride to the airport and he explained that when he was my age he hitched through Europe and wanted to repay the favor. When we got there he even gave me a handful of coins “as a souvenir.”
Back in 1992, H and I visited Molokai. We went to Sunday mass at a tiny Catholic church there. Two older ladies invited us to their (very modest) house for brunch. So kind of them to invite random strangers to share a meal–a happy memory.
A few years ago, my son and I were at the Dollar Tree on Christmas Eve–looking for an item I’d seen there before, but they no longer had. A young girl came up, handed me a hand-decorated envelope, and said “Merry Christmas.” I didn’t even look at it right away–I thought it was a card or religious tract. Finally, I opened it. There was a $100 bill inside! At first I didn’t know if it was real. It was one of the new bills which I’d never seen before. (I passed it on to a more-deserving person.)
I do try to find opportunities to do random acts of kindness. This thread is a good reminder that even the smallest thing —like a smile or kind word --can make someone’s day.
A random act of kindness can also be something that people remember for years and years.